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1 class instead of 3 proposal
aexrael
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
The benefits of 1 class
With 1 class players aren't forced to make a permanent decision at character creation which have a large effect on how their character plays, and ultimately how they perform in ships and other content. It is impossible to make an informed decision at this stage without prior knowledge of the content of the game, especially End Game content and how mechanics, ships, races, traits, abilities and classes all affect the players playstyles and roles possible within the confines of the game.A more free form system opens up the game for players to customize, experiment, specialize and adopt different playstyles over time as the game ages and changes. It contributes to the longevity of the game, keeping it fresh longer.
It also makes it simpler to add new things to player characters, in the form of new traits, skills, skill points, abilities and more without upsetting any balance inherent in the traditional class structure.
What needs to change
Player Granted Abilities
At present as players level up, they gain access to abilities such as Strike team or Sensor Scan.Player Granted Abilities
The change here is to move those abilities to Kits and Bridge Officers.
Existing Character Space Abilities can be fitted in where appropriate in the existing BOFF space ability system.
Thus
Attack Pattern Alpha
Fire on my Mark
Tactical Initiative
Go Down Fighting
Tactical Fleet
Becomes Tactical Bridge Officer abilities.
Sensor Scan
Subnucleonic Beam
Scattering Field
Photonic Fleet
Science Fleet
Becomes Science Bridge Officer abilities.
Rotate Shield Frequency
EPS Power Transfer
Nadion Inversion
Miracle Worker
Engineering Fleet
Becomes Engineering Bridge Officer abilities.
The Starship and Ground Skill Trees
The Rank - Skill Point allocation Requirements - Categorization and increasing costs are done away with.
Skills are categorized by aesthetics/lore.
This frees players to choose skills which fits their playstyle. They aren't penalized by skill categorization, or locked out of skills which only become available at a certain rank. Everything is available from the beginning.
Players are rewarded 4 "Knowledge Points" per level, for a total of 200 at lvl 50. The underlying experience/skill point gain system tied to leveling can be maintained. It could be renamed to be consistent with end game, and be referred to as gaining Expertise from mission completion and kills, as it is by lvl 50 anyway and to avoid confusion.
There's a total of 396 points possible to allocate in the system, with the possibility for introducing new skills in the future without having to consider strict placement or a need to adhere to any other restrictions.
Without the rank restrictions there is much more room for experimentation early on, and for players to find their preferred role faster.
This means 33 out of 44 skills can have 6 points allocated, or 22 can be maxed with 9 points. This gives adequate room for specializing without making it possible to max everything.
Google Docs Picture, Skill Tree
Gdocs, skill descriptions. Note the descriptions are a quick rewrite to conform to this proposed system.
Captain trained abilities from 3 or 6 point skills are done away with, it's an outdated restrictive system which serves no purpose.
Traits
New characters now only start with the racial trait.
1 New trait slot is gained every 5 levels starting at lvl 5
Aliens starts with none but chooses two traits at level 5.
11 total Traits (Racial + lvl 5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50)
Existing Class restricted traits are modified to accommodate a more neutral usefulness not tied to a specific ability.
Google Docs Spreadsheet
New traits can be added available for all characters, without affecting any class balance issues or having to adhere to other gameplay restrictions.
Ground Kits
The Quality (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, Ultra Rare) of the kit control the effectiveness of slotted abilities and the Tier (1-5) of kit control the amount of abilities they can slot.
Thus a Tier 5 kit can slot 5 abilities.
Google Docs Spreadsheet
This opens the system to adding new kit abilities to the respective categories, or the special category available for all three kits.
It maintains the specialization aspect for players, but keeps the system more open than the current pre-set selection of skills on existing kits.
Post edited by aexrael on
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Comments
i would say it should be a choose your ability for each rank similar to our boffs
lt. 5, choose between target optics, tricorder scan or reroute power to shields
lt. 8, choose between attack pattern alpha, sensor scan, rotate shield frequency
lt.C.5 choose between fire on my mark(grnd), neural neutralizer, cover shield
lt.C.8 choose between fire on my mark (space), subnucleonic beam, eps power transfer
Com.5 choose between tactical initiative(grnd), dampening field, support drone
Com.8 choose between tactical initiative (space), starship dampening field, nadeon inversion
Cap. 5. choose between security escort, nanoprobe infestation, orbital strike
Cap. 8 choose between go down fighting, photonic fleet, miracle worker
RALH.5 choose between strike team, scientific apitude, engineering profiency
RAUH.3 choose between tactical fleet, science fleet, engineering fleet
We can pilot any ship and fly them the way we want, why not have the same liberties with our captain.
Right now, our captains are top of the class Boffs, make them truely unique as captains
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
There is no such thing as too late. Especially given the continuous mudflation from new items, ships and abilities being introduced regularly, on top of an ever increasing focus on DPS being the only meaningful aspect of the game. Something has to be done, and this address the most core aspect of the overarching issues with the game's present state.
My initial writeup had the abilities changed and shifted to a Reputation style setup, but I changed my mind on that, because shifting the abilities to the BOFFs centralizes and simplifies the system. It means all ship abilities are handled by BOFFs, and makes it easier to balance abilities against each other. The Captain is there to give orders and serve as the commanding officer.
A state that is incredibly unlikely to be changed from input from the forums. If they ever change the classes or something to try to balance it out, it is highly unlikely they are going to listen to people on the forums. What makes you think they would use ANY of the stuff that people put up on the forums, not just this, but basically all of the supposed changes people have put up asking for
I try to avoid being as cynical as that. If there is even a remote chance of Geko listening, it's worth it.
True, It is just annoying that Cryptic/PWE is so ignorant of their own game and what people think of it, that they do not even have a feedback/suggestion box thread here on the forums. Even more annoying when they DO ask for help and then completely ignore it anyway.
O.o who's stupid idea was it to do that. What kind of screwed up legal problem does not allow them to listen their Customers.
might as well install a system like this where the players can balence the classes themselves as they create there characters
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
No, there is in fact such a thing as too late.
The message?
Work within the constraints of the current system, outright revamps and sweeping changes will not happen.
See, I think this would have the completely opposite effect. I believe it would further unbalance the game.
Using the list by dashminus
Lt 8 = APA, Com 8 = SNB as a combo for 1 ship/captain... no thanks. This would give a powerful debuff and alpha strike capability requiring no coordination... Don't think this would help balance at all.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
The existing system is fundamentally broken. Class structures have universally almost always been problematic, and they are even more so in STO due to the nature of the content players face. It doesn't make sense to work within it's restraints to try and shoehorn in changes which won't have the impact they need to have to change the underlying problems.
Not really, the classes are honestly not horribly unbalanced, it is the ships and Boff powers that have an issue. this game has no " fundamentally broken" system. Just tweak the powers and ships here and there can help a lot more than a revamp can and is much more likely to ever happen in the first place.
Then I guess you're out of luck then?
DO IT, DO IT NOW!
Not holding my breath though
We'll just have to disagree on that, because there is no semblance of balance between the three captain classes at the top end of the scale, and the bottom end of it isn't relevant as a measuring point for balance.
That would make it so much easier to balance.
Right now it's pure min-maxing, with minimum and maximum being worlds apart.
Apart from that you should always indicate whether you're talking about PvE or PvP.
In PvE it's common knowledge (hopefully?) that the problem lies in shallow gameplay, making escorts the kings of STFs.
If you don't need a tank, why bring one? It's similar to the late addon stages in WoW. Everyone has gathered the gear to simply rush through instances and solve every boss fight with a damage race.
The same in STO. More damage -> faster STF completion. If you get destroyed, who cares? There's that handy respawn. Just wait a moment and you're back in business. No need for tanks or healers.
By the way this might be a reason why people dislike ground STFs. Closed room, you die, you respawn, you're out of the fight. A challenge?! Oh noes!
Regarding PvP, I don't know. Overall it's a bit fast paced. Maybe too fast. Twitch gameplay isn't for everyone. And after all it's Star Trek, not a generic shooter. It also feels a bit strange that escorts, unless disabled, 'tank' as good as or even better than ships which are supposed to absorb damage, simply by avoiding it. But that's only an extreme. Like I said, a huge min-maxing park.
Not every player likes to be a spreadsheet-warrior. But that's pretty much mandatory in STO PvP.
It should be more about teamwork and tactics then finding the invincible build. I know it mostly comes down to teamwork when the top teams clash, but that's a very narrow scope of where PvP in STO 'works'.
-edit-
Seriously? Other game titles (world of warstuff) are censored? Wtf?! It's an MMO alright, but not even the same genre.. just oh - my - god.
if so: no, just no.
indeed i'm fine with the actual system. the tracking of performance though is another point. it shouldn't be mostly only about dps...
either everybody should have apa/sn or nobody should have them. My preference is the latter
you'll see the same reaction with orbital strike, either everybody gets it or nobody does
Have to disagree with you, Miracle worker is awesome and is IMO more powerful then APA, you cannot win if your dead. EPS power transfer is great to, and is a very helpful ability, i can keep 3 of my 4 powers maxed out with it and aux is near maxed.
Subnuc in the hands of EVERYONE is a really REALLY bad idea.